How to Get a Grade 9 in English Language??

Hi, so I highly recommend watching Mr Bruff videos on each of the individual questions and doing lots of past papers. Being honest with you, I didn’t use the revision guides as for English language I failed to find them useful. Find out the order of the questions that you want to do them in, e.g. for me it was 5, 1, 4, 2, 3 or 5, 1, 2, 3, 4,.

I suggest that you prewrite your creative writing however, make sure you get it checked by your teacher and make sure that you can easily spin it to fit any brief - you don’t want to end up being stuck with a story in the exam that doesn’t fit the question. Also, when doing past papers, find your weakness and focus on that - whether it’s creative writing, comparing texts, analysing language, analysing structure or writing to persuade. This will help greatly.

Learn how to write in a sophisticated manner - rather than saying “this shows” or “this makes the reader want to”, say words like “exemplifies” “highlights” “evokes” “connotes” “engages”, but use them correctly and so that they make sense.

Timing is very, very important and so don’t be spending all your time on the 8 mark questions when there’s a 40 marker. Perfect question 1 as it is the easiest question, aim to get 4/4 every time. All of the other questions require inference and opinion however question 1, aimed at lower ability students, is very very straightforward and it’s easy to infer too much and miss the point.

If you have any further questions feel free to message me (:

Easiest way to get a 9 is to first perfect the Narrative/ Descriptive. Personally, I didn't like learning pre-set stuff but if it helps you then do it. It's such a massive amount of marks and you can give yourself a really easy boost by just locking down those SPaG marks. I would also definitely, definitely recommend doing this section first so that you don't end up rushing it at the end (again it's absolutely loads of marks so take your time!).

For the section A's (and the persuasive writing, actually) the key is the GOOD TOPIC SENTENCE(S). I would even go as far as to say practice coming up with really intelligent sounding points, with really strong vocabulary and a concise point, over practicing actual development of analysis. This is because when you have a good topic sentence, your analysis will write itself, especially if you keep referring back to your original point as it will keep your analysis focused and deep.

Furthermore, don't be afraid to explore out-there ideas. Examiners love marking something that's fresh and different. This can be difficult at first, but if you just learn to really stretch your imagination (even if you know it's probably not what the writer intended) you come across as being able to analyse on a complex level - Just make sure it's not all abstract points otherwise you just seem like you don't understand the text. I tended to do a 50/50 split between the two.

Lastly, I would just say get watching Mr Bruff and Mr Salles on YouTube. I found them a bit late sadly, but they'll get you thinking about the texts and give you some points to steal.

Good luck and message me if you have any other questions!

thank u soo much, wht grades did u get for english at GCSE?

9 for both

wowww. whts ur advice for english lit?

Same advice on the topic sentences - honestly once I started doing that I went from 6/7 to 8/9 overnight.

For lit specifically, learn some applicable context to bring in to your analysis (and make sure you bring it in throughout). If you can back up your points with context as well as analysis consistently it looks REALLY impressive. I don't know what texts you're studying but context doesn't even have to be that specific: just mentioning high poverty rates in Victorian England, or Priestly's socialist leanings etc. would suffice. Obviously specifics are great too (like Dickens' family life etc.) but they're hardly as ever useful and it's just wasted brain space you could be using for quotes.

Tip for Shakespeare: imagine the characters as constructs. Oh My God if you can talk about the characters as symbols of emotions or archetypes you'll start coming up with some deeply profound points that will land you massive amounts of marks. Symbolism is really key for all of them, but especially Shakespeare as it gives you something more to talk about (it's quite hard to talk about his motives after all).

Finally, something that looks really impressive to examiners is stringing bits of the text together. If you can identify a common thread (a theme/ charcter etc.) running throughout one of the texts, pull together the really good examples of it to back up your point about that thread. Don't be afraid to end up writing loads about that one thread because it's ultimately better to have one REALLY strong point than lots of weaker ones that aren't backed up well. Dig into the analysis of all your chosen examples then summarise why those language features prove your strong topic senetence, and ultimately what that says about the WHOLE text.